1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a power consumption management apparatus, a power consumption management method, and a storage medium. More particularly, the present invention relates to a power consumption management apparatus for managing total power consumption of various electric equipment connected to the power consumption apparatus, a power consumption management method applied to a management computer to which an integrated amount of power consumed by the electric equipment and an identification code of the power consumption management apparatus are informed via a communication line from the apparatus, and a storage medium in which a program for executing the power consumption management method is stored.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, it is common for organizations such as companies, associations and public institutions (referred to, herein, as xe2x80x9corganizationsxe2x80x9d xe2x80x9ccompaniesxe2x80x9d) to purchase or rent prepare an office space where people are engaged in office, business, and technical work not requiring a large-scale facility (those people being hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9cemployeesxe2x80x9d). The employees usually commute to the office space using public traffic facilities, private cars, or other modes of transportation and they are, typically, engaged in work together for a predetermined number of working hours. In the office space, various electric equipment such as telephones, copying machines, facsimiles, computers, and a computer network are provided so that the employees can perform various types of work in an efficient manner.
The use of such electric equipment in a company office space generates electricity bills from the local electric company. As a matter of course, the company pays such electricity bills as a business expense.
In recent years, however, the ill effects of collective working, such as deterioration of commuting situations and air pollution due to the increased number of private cars, have become significant. On the other hand, a communications infrastructure, such as the Internet, and various communications technologies have been developed and expanded to include widespread availability. As a result, collective working is no longer a necessity for companies and their employees. Attention is now being focused on the concept of disperse working in which the employees of an organization are engaged in work at their respective houses (also referred to, herein, as xe2x80x9chomeworkersxe2x80x9d) or preferred places to carry out the work objectives of the organization as a whole.
When an organization carries out disperse working, it is generally the case that each employee uses as a working space (also referred to, herein, as a xe2x80x9chome officexe2x80x9d), one room of his or her house and a plurality of home offices dispersed in remote areas are interconnected via communication lines. This allows the employees to communicate with one another using information communication terminal equipment, e.g., telephones and facsimiles, and communications application software. The usable communication lines include, e.g., a public subscriber phone network, an ISDN network, and Internet dedicated lines. The usable communications application systems include, e.g., an electronic mail system, a WWW (World Wide Web) system, and a Video conferencing system.
FIG. 1 shows one example of a home office. A home office 1 is generally one room or a part of one room of an employee""s house. Various information communication equipment and household electrical appliances are usually employed to perform home-based work in the home office 1.
The information communication equipment can be used to improve work efficiency in the home office 1 or to carry out communications with other homeworkers and a main office. Examples of the equipment include a personal computer 2, a printer 3, a telephone 4 with an answering machine, and a facsimile transmitter/receiver 5. The household electrical appliances are employed to provide a basic working environment of the home office. Typical examples of these appliances include a lighting unit 6, an air conditioner 7, an electric carpet 8, and an electric heater 9.
Of course, such information communication equipment and household electrical appliances require electrical power for operation, and, thus, have cords and plugs for power supply. In general, users connect the plug directly to a receptacle 10 provided in the house for power supply, or connect the plug to the receptacle 10, indirectly, for example through another unit such as a power tap 11 having a cord.
The electric company demands payment from the household in which the home office is located for the power being consumed by the above-mentioned equipment. Typically, the homeworker is responsible for paying these electricity bills. However, if the homeworker is using the equipment to perform work-related tasks, some may view the cost of power consumption as a business expense that should be borne by the company to which the employee belongs.
This viewpoint may also apply to the communication charge for transmission from the telephone and the facsimile used in the home office. However, the employee can usually receive the particulars of the charge for each call via the public subscriber phone line, etc. from the communications company, and hence determine which communication charges are associated with business. The employee is then able to demand payment for the business-related communication charges from the company using the list of the particulars as evidence. It is also customary that an organization employing many employees purchases mobile communication equipment such as cellular phones under the name of the company, then becomes a subscriber of a mobile communication service, and rents the equipment to the employees. In this case, the charges are directly billed to the company so it is not necessary for the employee to calculate the communication charges and request payment from the company.
On the other hand, it is not customary for a company employing homeworkers to pay the electrical charges for power consumed in home offices. There are numerous reasons for this business practice. The home office is usually a part of the homeworker""s house and the process of charging for power consumed in the house involves the use of an integrating wattmeter installed by the electrical company. Accordingly, all power consumed in the house is charged collectively, and there is no means for determining which electrical charges are associated with business. The current method of addressing this problem is to pay the homeworkers for the heat and light expenses associated with home working. This payment is based on values of standard rated power consumed by the individual information communications equipment, and the company pays the extra money to all the homeworkers.
However, some homeworkers are engaged in home-based work for an extensive period of time every day in their home offices, while the other employees frequently go out or take a business trip to the main office or to meet with clients such that they do not stay at the home offices for an extensive period of time every day. Also, working hours of the homeworkers are different individually because of different holidays or vacations and flextime working. If a company with a large number of employees pays a fixed amount of extra money evenly to all the homeworkers in spite of the variations described in the above situations, this would possibly invite a feeling of inequity among the homeworkers. Another problem is that the company may find it difficult to pay for expenses of which the amounts cannot be verified.
Even if the company starts paying extra money for power consumed in home offices, it would be difficult to determine which electrical devices are covered by the expenses. While the electrical charges of the information communications equipment can be taken into the extra expense, it is hard to take into the extra expense the electrical charges of the household electrical appliances which are not directly related to business and of which models and rated power consumption are not grasped by the company. However, it is reasonable for the employees working in the home offices to ask for the employers to bear the expenses resulting from the use of air conditioners and lighting units in the home offices since these expenses are comparable to the expenses for air conditioning, lighting units, etc. in the main office which are paid by the employers. In such a case, even if the company understands the concept of the employees working in the home offices, it is still difficult for the company to pay for the power consumed in home offices from the viewpoint of accounting for taxation and the inability to precisely specify the amount of the electrical charges directly related to business.
In order to increase the number of employees who are engaged in home-based work in home offices, as described above, the company should be able to precisely ascertain the amounts of power consumed in the home offices of those employees.
However, in the past apparatus or method capable of realizing the above requirement has been developed. With apparatuses and methods hitherto proposed, an integrating wattmeter for measuring and storing total power consumption of the house is designed to provide an integrated value of power to the electrical company or the like via a communication line, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-350726 and No. 10-111326, for example. The proposed apparatuses and methods handle total power consumption of the house, and therefore cannot measure power consumption in only a part of the house, i.e., a home office. Further, the destination to which data of power consumption is informed is the electrical company or the associated measuring center, and the data of power consumption cannot be transmitted to other organizations or places.
In view of the above-described state of art, an object of the present invention is to provide a power consumption management apparatus, a power consumption management method, and a storage medium with which power consumption in a home office is measured and an integrated value of the power consumption during a certain period can be provided to an employer of a homeworker via a communication network.
To achieve the above object, the power consumption management apparatus according to the present invention comprises a power consumption managing unit for supplying power to electric equipment connected to the apparatus, and measuring and storing an integrated amount of power consumed by the electric equipment; and a communicating unit for reporting the integrated amount of power consumption stored in the power consumption managing unit to another location via a communication line.
Also, the power consumption management method according to the present invention comprises a receiving step for receiving integrated amounts of power consumption and corresponding identification information both transmitted from a plurality of power consumption management apparatuses; a user name acquiring step for acquiring user names of the power consumption management apparatuses based on the identification information received in the receiving step by referring to correspondence between the identification information and the user names of the power consumption management apparatuses, the correspondence having been stored in a management computer prior to the receiving step; and a first combining step for combining the user names acquired in the user name acquiring step with the integrated amounts of power consumption which are received in the receiving step and correspond to the user names.
Additionally, a storage medium, storing a program readable by a computer executes a receiving step for receiving integrated amounts of power consumption and corresponding identification information both transmitted from a plurality of power consumption management apparatuses, and a user name acquiring step for acquiring user names of the power consumption management apparatuses based on the identification information received in the receiving step by referring to correspondence between the identification information and the user names of the power consumption management apparatuses, the correspondence being stored in a management computer prior to the receiving step. The program also includes a first combining step for combining the user names acquired in the user name acquiring step with the integrated amounts of power consumption which are received in the receiving step and correspond to the user names.